1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an electronic system in which musical instrument sounds are artificially generated from a voice input.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In my U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,484,530 and 3,634,596 there are disclosed systems for producing musical outputs from a memory containing recorded musical notes that can be stimulated by single note inputs through a microphone. The systems disclosed in these patents are able to detect pitch, attack, sustain and decay as well as volume level and are able to apply these sensed inputs to the recorded note being played back. In effect, the systems are musical note to musical note converters that may be converted fast enough so that no lag can be detected by the listener or by the player. In each instance the recorded notes are those of a real musical instrument having played the chromatic scale. The reproduction of these notes produces the same type of instrument that is commonly heard on phonograph records or magnetic tape of commerically produced music. The systems are believed to be superior to conventional electronic musical note synthesizers that, typically, are not entirely faithful to the instrumental sounds that are intended to be recreated.
In the systems disclosed in the above patents, the memory is capable of containing discrete notes of the chromatic scale and respond to discrete input notes of the same pitch. The system is analogous to a keyboard instrument where the player has only discrete notes to choose from and actuates one by depressing that particular key. Other musical instruments give a player a choice of pitches between whole and half tone increments. For example, a violin can produce a pitch which is variable depending upon where the string is fretted or a slide trombone can cause a pitch falling in between whole and half tone increments. Both of these instruments produce an unbroken frequency spectrum of pitch. However, prior art systems have not been able to provide a continually varying pitch at the output in response to a continually varying pitch at the input nor have they been able to produce a note timbre that realistically duplicates what a real instrument does as a function of pitch over the range of the instrument nor provide a note quality or timbre which realistically duplicates what a real instrument does as a function of degree of force at the input of an instrument.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide improvements in system for artificially generating sounds of musical instruments in response to an input.
Another object of this invention is to provide a voice operated system adapted to generate the sound of a musical instrument that faithfully reproduces the true sound of the instrument over an unbroken frequency spectrum of pitch and generates notes that duplicate the note quality in relation to pitch and force corresponding to a real instrument.